How To Make Sweetheart Cherry Pie

Author: Allison  //  Category: Desserts, Holiday Desserts

 

Ingredients:

Pie dough
Fresh cherries, chopped
Ricotta cheese
Sprinkle of sugar
1 TBSP butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll out your pie dough (I like to do this between 2 sheets of plastic wrap). Cut out shapes with cookie cutter.
Sprinkle and stir the sugar with the chopped cherries in a bowl.
Lay out your heart cut outs on the baking sheet. Spoon on some fresh ricotta cheese, then spoon on the cherries. Lay down the top dough, seal to press with a fork.
Brush the top with melted butter.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until mini hearts are golden brown. The baking time will largely depend on the thickness of your pastry dough and your oven. Just keep close watch.
Cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

How To Make Cherry Vanilla Hot Chocolate

Author: Allison  //  Category: Beverages

 

Ingredients:

Makes 2 cups

1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean pod
2 tablespoons salted butter
1/8 cup cocoa powder
2 cups whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean pod
3 oz. chopped white chocolate
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup heaving whipping cream
3 oz. kirsch (cherry liqueur)
2 maraschino cherries, for serving

Directions:

In a small bowl, scrape the seeds of half the vanilla bean pod and stir in the sugar to combine. Set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder,  vanilla sugar and whisk until a paste forms. Slowly add milk, whisking constantly. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in white chocolate and cook, stirring, until chocolate is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Meanwhile, place heavy whipping cream in a small jar. Close lid on the jar tightly and vigorously shake jar until whipped cream is formed, about 2-3 minutes. Serve hot chocolate in warm mugs and spike each mug with 1 1/2 oz. kirsch. Top with whipped cream and serve with maraschino cherries.

How To Make Skittles Vodka

Author: Allison  //  Category: Alcohol

Skittles Vodka

Ingredients needed for Skittles Vodka

One 1.75 liter bottle of vodka (avoid the cheap ones)
Five 8.5 ounce flasks or bottles
One 1 pound bag of Skittles
Five empty plastic water bottles
A funnel
Bowls for separating the Skittles into flavors
A measuring cup
Coffee filters or paper towels

Instructions for making Skittles Vodka

You’ll also want to cover your workspace with newspaper or freezer paper – this infusion can get messy. If you’re making a different sized batch, here’s the formula you need to know: I used 60 Skittles to 6 ounces of vodka, which yields about 8 ounces of infused vodka. If you want to make 1.5 times that, or 3 times that, just multiply your amounts.

Start by simply separating the Skittles into flavors. You want 60 of each.

Fill your water bottles with 6 ounces of vodka each. It doesn’t need to be exact – you can always even it out later by pouring in a bit more vodka to the ones that come out with less.
Pour the Skittles of one flavor into one infusion bottle, then pour the next flavor of Skittles into the next infusion bottle, and so on until all five bottles have a pile of Skittles soaking in the vodka.

You could certainly be more sophisticated than I was here, and use a funnel to pour the Skittles of each flavor into one of the bottles. The reason Skittles vodka tutorial. I did it this way was that I felt it would be easier to wash each flavor of Skittles off my hands before moving onto the next one than it than to get that flavor out of the funnel each time – that plastic tends to hold onto the flavors, skin doesn’t.

Now your infusion bottles all have Skittles in the bottom. Give each bottle a good shake – the more, the better. In my picture here, you can see that the colored candy coating has already rubbed off into the vodka, but the white insides of the Skittles still have a lot of dissolving to do. After shaking them, set them aside for a few hours. It’s a good idea to shake them again then, especially if you’re making a bigger batch. My Skittles all dissolved overnight. Once they’re all dissolved, you’ll notice a lot of white muck floating at the top.

There are a number of ways to strain this stuff and get all the white gunk out. Some people prefer paper towels, but I used coffee filters and found they worked just as well. I put a funnel inside a measuring cup.

Then I put four coffee filters in the funnel. It’s hard to say exactly how many you’ll need, since not all coffee filters are exactly the same. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn, though: orange and green needed more filtration than the others. I discovered this when I thought I was finished, and found a little bit of white stuff still floating in those two flavors. No problem, though: I just strained them again through one more coffee filter, and that took care of it. So if you find you haven’t strained it thoroughly enough, the good news is: you can always fix that later.

Then I poured one of the infusions into my strainer setup. I had to pour about a quarter of my infusion in, then wait for some of it to soak through, then pour another quarter in, until I was done. (If the strainer clogs with white gunk, use a spoon to scrape the white gunk out of the way.) In the end, you’ll have about 8 ounces of Skittle infused vodka. Then I dumped the funnel and coffee filters into one of the bowls I’d used earlier for counting out Skittles, to catch drips as I carried it over to the sink. I washed everything out for re-using (except the coffee filters, of course – those I just rinsed before disposing of, so the sugar wouldn’t attract ants).

Then I took the liquid from the measuring cup and poured it into a flask, via the now-clean funnel. You can see here that the green is a little thick, and it shouldn’t have been – that’s why I ended up having to re-filter it. Then I rinsed the funnel out again.

Repeat this process for each flavor.

Stick them in the freezer for several hours or overnight preferably.

Now you have your Skittles Vodka